Memories of Mieville – The Lost Railroad

Not too long ago I read Iron Council by China Mieville…which resonated with me in ways I’m still having trouble reconciling. So, when I was sent these images from Russian motorcyclists (at Lost Biker Ru) touring through Northern Siberia, who came across the Lost Railroad, one of Stalin’s Follies; I had to share.

We’ve recently come across an abandoned railway in Abkhazia, abandoned as a result of USSR collapse when new “independent” republics couldn’t maintain the complicated and high-cost USSR legacy objects. But this one was abandoned long before the USSR collapse, it was doomed to be abandoned from the beginning. It was built by Stalin’s order in the middle of nowhere – deep inside Northern Siberia between Salekhard city and Igarka town. It was not connected with any other Russian Federal Railway System and the purpose of it still is not very clear, so as a senseless toy it was abandoned pretty soon and now rusts, easily accessible only by helicopter.